Residents of a neighborhood in West Arlington walked out of their homes on the morning of June 10 to find hate staring them in the face.

Overnight, someone had used their garage doors and vehicles as a canvas to express the kinds of sentiments that could constitute a crime--”racial slurs, hateful messages and vulgar, derogatory images,” in the words of the Arlington Police Department.

Most significantly, one of the victims appeared to have been chosen “based upon bias and prejudice related to their sexual orientation,” according to the cops.

These hatemongers did not take into account two things. The first is that Arlington police, to their credit, took this very seriously from the very beginning. The second is that the investigation quickly discovered that the crime had been captured on “excellent” surveillance video, which made the identification of the suspects pretty easy.

Today, Arlington police announced the arrest of five people, four adults and one juvenile. For now all have been accused of violating graffiti laws, but investigators have asked Tarrant County prosecutors to consider throwing at them the part of the book that includes Texas hate crime statutes. Based on the photos and the fact that one of the targets was a gay couple, that should be pretty easy.

“We want to send a strong message to the community that this type of behavior will not be tolerated,” Arlington Acting Police Chief Will Johnson said in today’s statement. “We take these types of disreputable incidents very seriously and utilize the necessary resources to quickly apprehend the person or people responsible.”

Gay activists have been monitoring this case closely. Even before local police issued their press release announcing the arrests, the national gay rights group Human Rights Campaign put out its own statement from Washington.

“This is a shining example of law enforcement officials doing the right thing, and working diligently to ensure all members of the community they serve feel safe and protected,” Human Rights Campaign said.

Although the case is seemingly solved, there’s this sobering thought to consider: The suspects knew the targets of this bias attack lived in this particular neighborhood, and in one particular house. In other words, there was nothing random about it. This was a deliberate attack against one specific family.

I asked Sgt. Christopher Cook, a spokesman for the Arlington Police, if the suspects were from the neighborhood. “They do have ties to the area,” Cook said, although he noted that one suspect listed an address in Fort Worth.

All are teenagers and two of them, including the 16-year-old juvenile, are female.